Prince Of Tennis
The Prince of Tennis is one popular anime and manga series released in Japan and other countries in the world for the anime and manga lovers to see. It has been aired on television these days, while the manga series is continually published in Japan. It is also becoming more and more popular with many episodes of the series now made available online through downloads.
Well, there are a lot of things people should know about the Prince of Tennis. On the most basic, this manga and anime series was first written and created by a Japanese mangaka named Takeshi Konomi. The manga version of this series was first published as part of the Weekly Shonen Jump of Shueisha in Japan in the year 1999. The version was in Japanese though, but later that year the English version came out through the help of VIZ Media. The English version was released in North America, but it passes through almost a year of hiatus when Takeshi Konomi was involved in an accident and gets injured. To make the Prince of Tennis manga series alive, the publication was resumed in 2006.
Years after the introduction of the manga series, the anime version of the Prince of Tennis came out directed by Takayuki Hamana. It was co-produced by TV Tokyo and Nihon Ad Systems, but animated by Trans Arts. It was first aired across Japan, which from the year 2001 to 2005 it gathers 178 episodes in all. The original video animation of the series was released in the form of DVD in 2006, while the second animation was scheduled to be released this year, 2007.
What makes the Prince of Tennis fun and interesting is basically the flow of its story. If you have seen the video of the anime series, or read the manga, you’ll notice that at the beginning of the story, Tokyo is the primary location set. The Price of Tennis talks about the story of Ryoma Echizen, who happens to be a tennis genius. He attends the Seishun Academy Middle School, also known as Seigaku, where he joined a tennis club composed of professional talented tennis players. What happens in the story is that Echizen defeated the upperclassmen days after his entrance to the school, which in turn has allowed him to get a spot on the regular tennis club. Now, with all of the members of the club aiming to win the All-Japan Junior High Tennis Championship, they all started to make friends while mastering and practicing all the advance techniques of tennis, even the ones that Echizen has been practicing.
In terms of characters, the Prince of Tennis anime and manga series came out with its own heroes and villains. The most common characters from Prince of Tennis are the ones who belong to the Seishun Academy Middle School which include the following: Ryoma Echizen, Takashi Kawamura, Takeshi Momoshiro, Kunimitsu Tezuka, Kaoru Kaidoh, Shuichiro Oishi, Shusuke Fuji, Sadaharu Inui, and Eiji Kikumaru. They are the regulars who have been aiming to win the cup for the all junior tennis tournament. You can find other characters, including Katsuo Mizuno, Masashi Arai, Daisuke Hayashi, Kachiro Kato, Satoshi Horio, and Masaya Ikeda.
Several other characters are involved in the Prince of Tennis. You can find many of them taking the role of Echizen’s rivals. There are also supporting characters that are not really part of the tennis team, but played a major role in the story and the game.
Now, wondering how these characters from Prince of Tennis look like? Try watching the movie series, or simply go through the available Prince of Tennis gallery sites on the web. You can find pictures of Ryoma Echizen and other characters there, with some basic profiles of them.